


Tops Only

by indistinct_echo



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Bakery and Coffee Shop, M/M, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 10:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30138084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indistinct_echo/pseuds/indistinct_echo
Summary: A new customer comes into Phil's bakery, just in time for game night. Despite his all-black outfit, he immediately fits right in.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 20
Kudos: 117





	Tops Only

The entry-way bell chimes as the shop’s yellow door is opened.

Phil instinctively calls over his shoulder, “Game night starts in forty minutes. Is there anything I can get started for you?” He finishes fighting with the coffee machine and wipes his hands onto his apron as he turns around.

The customer doesn’t seem to have heard him. He’s looking around the bakery, at all of its soft colors and plush fabrics, like he thinks he might’ve come into the wrong shop. Phil catches his glance up towards the disco ball on the ceiling, and, yeah, okay, Phil may have gone a bit overboard with the decorating, but the regulars are most certainly used to it by now. That must mean this guy is new. Admittedly, Phil probably could’ve intuited that, given that he’s _definitely_ never seen him here before and Phil’s relationship with days off is strained at best.

Phil coughs lightly so as not to scare him. The poor guy still jumps anyways, his eyes widening as he spins to find the source of the noise. Phil thinks he should be pretty easy to spot — his dyed hair is the only black coloured thing in the shop. Other than this new guy’s outfit, that is. Phil will just have to sticker him up like he did the till so he can remain emo-supreme. His dark fringe is the only symbol of his emo days that he still carefully maintains, but he likes that his branding isn’t all rainbows and sugar. Gay people have layers. Like tiered cakes.

“Uh, hi,” the customer mumbles as he walks over to the counter. “Not to be weird, but this is a bakery, right?”

Phil smiles. “It is! This your first time at Tops Only?”

“Yup,” he says, eyeing Phil’s apron suspiciously. Fair enough — a photorealistic set of oiled up abs isn’t the most _standard_ apron pattern.

“Fantastic. Happy to have you. Our specialty is cupcake tops, as you’ve maybe already guessed. Though, if you wait until trivia, there should be plenty of the _other kind_ of tops heading here as well.”

He winks — that kind of joke tends to at least get a polite chuckle — but this guy just stares at him. Phil suppresses his sigh; he hates having to explain his jokes, especially because there’s a pretty direct correlation between the people who don’t understand them and those he’s had to throw out of the shop.

“This is also a gay hangout,” he clarifies, “especially frequented by self-identifying ‘tops.’”

Phil holds his breath as he carefully watches for any sign that this piece of information might stir up some trouble, but the man just rolls his eyes.

“Ok, Google is definitely stealing my data, then.”

Phil starts to wonder what kinds of gay things this guy is searching, simply out of professional curiosity, of course, but then the guy’s phone does a little chime. He raises it — and one eyebrow — as he angles the screen so that Phil can see the indicator which signals that the Google assistant is listening.

“Did you ‘Ok Google’ on purpose to be able to do that trick—” the phone chimes again “—or do you frequently talk about big tech spying on you?”

Phil would be impressed either way; even if it was planned in advance, Phil doesn’t think he’s physically coordinated enough to pull that off. Simply scripting the lines he’d have to say to get it to work already seems challenging. The only reason he’s been able to develop catchphrases for the shop is because he’s essentially been practicing on every customer that’s walked in these past four years.

“Oh, is that what it is? Definitely not planned. But I happen to talk to myself a lot, so maybe I’m accidentally dictating instructions to my phone as I do my swiping?”

“Right or left?” Phil asks.

The guy blinks. “I don’t just use my phone for Grindr, mate. I’m swiping all directions.”

“Do you have a favorite one?”

“A favorite direction?”

Phil nods.

“Forwards, maybe? Because it stands for progress and all that jazz, I guess. Is that the right answer?”

Phil shrugs. “Don’t know. I like ‘Up’ because of the movie.”

“Not to be a downer — oh, that was- that wasn’t an intentional pun. I should probably think before I speak more. What was I saying? Oh yeah, all of the directions probably have movies named after them, or, at the very least, a couple of exploited celebrity children.”

“Yeah, alright, you win,” Phil says easily. The guy probably doesn’t realize it, but he sounds so much more comfortable now, so much more confident. That’s why Phil loves this place — it’s somewhere where everybody can feel at home. “As your prize, take your pick of any drink on the menu. On the house.”

“Oh! Uh, thanks.” The guy leans an arm onto the bar. “Is there anything you’d recommend?”

Phil looks at him for a moment, trying to figure out if that’s meant to be flirty or not. He errs on the side of caution.

“The espresso milkshake is like heaven in a cup, and the caramel macchia—” Phil cuts himself off at the guy’s poorly hidden look of what seems to be fear. He tries a less sugary approach. “We make a good iced coffee? Even the ice itself is made out of coffee. It’s a life hack.”

“An iced coffee would be great,” the man says. “Only one sugar,” he quickly adds, probably realizing Phil’s tastes lie firmly on the sweet side of the spectrum.

“I’ll get that started for you.” Phil sees the opportunity and seizes it: “Can I get a name for the cup?”

“Oh, I’m staying. It is game night, after all.” The guy has the audacity to smirk.

Phil blushes; it’s been a while, but swoony emo guys will always be his weakness. “I was trying to smoothly ask for your name.”

“In that case, that was actually quite a good line, then.”

That’s… that’s such a nice thing to say. And maybe it’s a bit uncommon for someone to congratulate a person on having a good chat-up line — not that this even really meets that criteria — but Phil’s chest warms at the praise, nonetheless.

“Thank you,” Phil says, looking expectantly at the man in the hopes that he’ll fill in the blank with his own name.

He smiles. “Dan. I’m Dan.”

“Nice to meet you, Dan,” Phil says, returning the grin. He turns to go start round two of his boxing match with the coffee machine.

“Likewise, Phil.”

Phil whirls around, knocking into a milk-frothing nozzle in the process. It’s fine, the coffee machine probably can’t get more broken. “How’d you know my name?”

Dan gives him an incredulous sort of look. “You’ve got a nametag on your tit, mate.”

Phil looks down. “Is it on my tit or the apron’s? Maybe it should say the apron’s name.”

“While I’m sure your apron would appreciate not being entirely objectified, I think people will more likely need to call your name than your apron’s.”

Phil frowns. “You’re probably right. But between you and me, we can know his name is actually Brian.”

“Brian? That’s your idea of a sexy name?”

“It’s a name, why’s it need to be sexy?”

Dan gestures at the apron. “I just figured you’d want it to match your idea of a sexy body.”

“Oh, this wasn’t meant to be, like, a representation of my type,” Phil hurries to explain. He wouldn’t want Dan — the living manifestation of his type — to have any doubts about Phil’s attraction, were the conversation to take that sort of turn. But that seems like a weird thing to just say, so he lets himself keep talking and hopes the babble his brain churns out sounds somewhat decent when said aloud. That isn’t something he’s good at testing before it’s actually been said. “Could you imagine how weird that’d be if we all went around with other hot people’s torsos on our torsos? It’s meant to be a joke about the stereotypes for tops.”

“That’s clever actually. Why is this specifically a ‘tops only’ kind of bakery?”

Phil’s smile is bittersweet. “Unfortunately, that’s a longer story than we’ll have time for before game night, given that I haven’t even set up the room yet. But let me fix you that coffee and whatever pastries you actually came in here for.”

“Can I help?” Dan’s warm brown eyes seem sincere, and, after a moment’s consideration, Phil decides it’s better that Dan move some tables than watch Phil embarrass himself as he hits the coffee machine until it starts working again.

Phil sighs. “Fine, but I’m paying you in baked goods.”

Dan cackles. “I’m not doing this to be paid. I wasn’t walking around London, like, ‘Oh, let me just pop into bakeries and force them to give me jobs. I’d have to be about seventy percent weirder — and probably twice as skint — to even consider doing that.’”

“To be fair, that’s basically what I did, except I saw a place for rent and decided to give myself a job.”

“Wait, you own this place? Oh gosh, you’re like _accomplished.”_

“Accomplished? I make gay ass pastries all day. Well, pastries for gay people, I mean.”

“Is there such a thing as a specifically gay ass?”

Phil considers the asses he’s seen. The results are inconclusive. “Maybe I could put two cupcake tops together so it looks like a butt and also it’s double cake so win-win.”

“You could add a pretentious description like, ‘An homage to the glorious gay ass.’”

“Perfect. Maybe I really should hire you,” Phil teases.

“Like I said, I just want to help out — what can I do?”

_

While Dan is busy moving the tables so that they’re split into four groups for tonight’s team games, Phil stares at the coffee maker. He strokes his chin in the hopes of manifesting the knowledge of the chin strokers that came before him — at least one of them must have fixed a coffee machine in their time. When that doesn’t work, he gives the machine the quietest shake he can manage. Dan doesn’t seem to notice and the coffee machine is still futzy, so he shakes it again. And again.

“Hey,” a voice whispers, right by his ear. “Can I try?”

Dan is so close that Phil’s afraid to turn his head in fear of planting his lips right on Dan’s cheek. He nods.

Dan reaches around and fiddles with some of the buttons at the top. Phil’s surprised to find out that Dan actually does mumble as he works, and, even more so, that he seems to know what he’s talking about. He steps away to give Dan better access to the machine, but then Dan reaches out a hand towards him, palm open.

“Do you need me to get something?” Phil asks. “I’m not exactly sure where the tools are, but I know I have a cordless hammer drill around here somewhere.”

“Can you give me your hand? I want to show you what to do, but that means you’ve got to first feel what’s wrong.”

“Uh, sure. You’ve figured it out already?” Phil places his hand gently into Dan’s. He hopes his palm doesn’t start to sweat too much. Dan is all business, but Phil’s brain is all Dan.

“Yeah, some things got knocked out of alignment.”

Phil winces.

“It probably wasn’t you, given that there must have already been issues which… _inspired_ you to shake it in the first place. But this is fairly easy to fix, once you know what you’re looking for.”

“If it makes things better, I’m normally not the one on drinks duty,” he says weakly.

“That’s probably for the best,” Dan teases as he turns to face him. He doesn’t let go of Phil’s hand. “But no, you can totally do this.”

“Do you have coffee shop experience? Are you another bakery sent to spy on me for my secret recipes? Wait, you probably wouldn’t tell me if that were the case. It’s okay if you are, we all have different strengths.”

Dan bursts into laughter. “I’m glad you’re so magnanimous. I was sure I’d have to seduce and rob you of your famous tops. Now I can skip a step.”

Phil hopes the step being skipped is the robbing. He’d still like to be seduced by Dan. “Why, do you only have bottoms?”

Dan pretends to retch. “Who would make a bakery advertising the worst part of a cupcake? That sounds like a terrible business proposal. You did the smart thing, especially given your sweet tooth.”

“But you don’t seem to have one, and yet here you are.”

“Baked goods aren’t all sugar,” he says. Then he puts his hand up. “And don’t say a word about carbohydrates breaking down into sugar. I’m ignoring science to make a point.”

“Bake is in the word ‘bakery’ but sugar isn’t, so I agree that you’ve got standing legs.”

Dan blinks at him. “Most people say I have long legs, but I guess standing legs works too.”

Phil’s gaze is on Dan’s skinny-jean clad legs before he’s even finished his sentence. He _does_ have long legs. It’s only once Phil remembers it’s generally rude to stare that he looks back up at Dan, feeling a flush begin to warm his cheeks.

Dan has an eyebrow quirked, and his eyes are so intense that it makes Phil’s insides do a happy wiggly thing. The feeling is only heightened when Dan squeezes Phil’s hand. “Let’s make ourselves some coffee, yeah?”

_

Phil never feels quite ready for these sorts of events — even if he’s hosted dozens of them over the years. In the same way that preparing cookie platters or putting a pen and paper on each chair has become routine, so too has the fifteen-minute-warning anxiety.

But it’s different today. And Phil is self-aware enough to know that having Dan here is more than likely the reason. Maybe it’s because two sets of hands are quicker than one. Maybe it’s that the talking and flirting is distracting him from all of the tiny things that could possibly be going wrong right now. Maybe it’s just Dan’s infectious energy.

Regardless, when Phil thinks through the mental list of things he needs to do before people arrive it’s blessedly short. There should be another employee clocking in at any minute to take over the drinks, and Sam will be right out as soon as the next batch of pastries is done, so there’s only one item left for Phil: make Dan laugh.

And he does. Most of the time he’s not even trying to be funny, and that’s the best part. He doesn’t have to do anything but be himself to hear Dan’s wonderful hyena laugh and get to playfully whack at him in return. It’s not professional in the slightest, but why should he need to be? This is perfect.

“So the gay part of this was all an accident?” Dan asks, once he’s finally able to get Phil to sit down for long enough to tell Top’s origin story.

Phil puts his coffee down onto the table beside them. “Look,” he explains, “people got confused with the name, and I felt way too awkward to turn them away. So instead I just said that I converted the bakery into a gay bar at night. Back in Uni, I knew a Chinese restaurant that used to work like that, so I figured it wasn’t too implausible.”

“Is that why you have the disco ball?”

Phil shakes his head. “No, that’s just because I like it — it doesn’t even spin. We don’t actually convert into any kind of club, except for on, like, special occasions.”

“Why not? Surely gay bars are more popular than gay bakeries, no offense.”

Phil hums. “That’s just it, though. This was an unfilled niche in a lot of ways. Bakeries tend to not have the same kind of focus on alcohol and sex that bars — especially gay bars — do. So people here are almost always sober and aren’t typically aren’t looking for partners. It makes this place a really great way for gay adults to find friends and community without alcohol being at the center.”

Dan bites his bottom lip and is quiet for a moment. “You know,” he says eventually, “this would’ve been something that really made a huge difference to me had I had access to it growing up or when I first came out. Even until today, really, I would have thought wanting to be involved in queer nightlife meant going clubs and drag shows every other night.” He reaches out and covers Phil’s hand on the table with his own. “It’s great that you’re so passionate about finding additional avenues for community for those who want them.”

“Thanks Dan, that means a lot.”

Dan takes a long sip of his coffee. “Can I ask you something?”

“Just did, but go on.”

“Ugh that’s- that’s such a dad joke, but okay. Why tops? Is that just a gimmick because of the shop name, or is this really a top-only kind of space?”

“I think it’s hard to make a space ‘only’ anything. There are almost always grey areas. Maybe, with the idea of tops and bottoms, it’s all grey areas. It’s not meant to be exclusive.”

“So what’s the value in having it there at all?”

Phil furrows his brow as he tries to put the words in an order that makes sense. “A top, at least in this bakery, isn’t meant as a real distinction — we recognize that people can do whatever they want, however they want. But there are stereotypes for tops, even from within the LGBT community, so this is really meant as a safe space for anyone feels shoehorned into a particular sort of role based on their size or muscularity or energy.”

“Like expecting that they all look like Brian,” Dan says.

“Exactly. Or that they don’t like ‘feminine’ foods — a really stupid category, by the way — such as cupcakes. The success of our events certainly proves that untrue.”

“It’s really quite interesting. Like in the sense that, for most gay guys, the stereotype is that they like rainbows and glitter. But then, for some reason, tops are expected to not like those things.”

“Yeah, it made designing this space quite complicated because we didn’t want to play into one set of stereotypes or the other, but of course we still want people to be able to express themselves.”

Dan frowns. “Why go through all of the trouble to weave between people’s expectations? Why not just decorate how you want?”

“Firstly, my design style would probably put off more people than it’d… turn on? No, that’s not what I mean, but it is somewhat horrendous. I had to scale it back a lot before my family gave their approval.” Phil chuckles at the memory.

“You wanted your family’s approval for decorating your gay bakery? That’s really cute.”

Phil blushes. “Also, like, even though each gay person as an individual doesn’t have any obligation to break stereotypes and they should just be who they are, as an establishment I felt like I could do more. It wouldn’t be ‘inauthentic’ for the shop to not have rainbows on the walls even if I personally really liked them.”

“Also, I want this to be a place where people feel like they can be themselves. If I put rainbows and glitter everywhere, maybe people would feel like they have to be peppy and campy and performatively ‘gay’ all of the time. Those are great qualities, but if that’s who they are authentically then I don’t need to paint it on — it’ll come from them, themselves. Plenty of people are just chill most of the time, and while they may feel comfortable, or even enjoy, putting on that mask for Pride or clubbing, I wanted to provide a space where they don’t feel the need to wear any masks at all. It’s just a shop.”

“Just a shop,” Dan mimics, rolling his eyes. “Phil, this is revolutionary!”

Phil looks around the bakery, taking it all in as a newcomer would, before answering. “Maybe it is, but I don’t mean for it to be. All I really want is for this place to keep on being here for people to stumble into.”

“Like I did.”

Phil doesn’t even have to do any body language detective work to be able to decipher how fond Dan sounds.

“For most people, it takes a bit longer to get settled in.” Phil directs a meaningful look towards Dan’s feet which are propped up on a nearby chair. It’s mostly just an excuse to stare at his long legs again.

Dan gently kicks at Phil’s side. Phil grabs at his ankle with his free hand and heaves his leg onto his lap. Dan moves the other one to join it. It’s silly, but it feels good. It feels right.

“Do most people just take a flier and a doughnut and leave? How basic. Can’t believe they don’t put in the effort to flirt with the shop owner for nearly an hour before they voluntarily choose to socialize just so they can continue hanging out.”

Phil laughs. “I don’t know, I’m kind of glad nobody’s tried your tactics before. They can keep their fliers.” The ‘if I can keep you’ is implied.

_“Are you a mild-mannered gay with enthusiasm? Come join Phil and friends for cupcakes, lattes, a cheeky smile, and a wink!”_

“Are you sure you don’t want to work here? That’s honestly better than the fliers Sam designed.”

Dan shakes his head and then smiles sheepishly. “I’ll pass, but I have a feeling I’ll be coming ‘round a lot, anyways.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees. It doesn’t really make sense, but he thinks Dan knows what he means. He seems to understand everything else about Phil, even without him needing to explain. “But if you want to ‘hang out’ some more, I just happen to have the perfect position for you for game night.”

“Will I have to socialize?”

“Mostly just with me.” Phil tries to hide his smile at the way Dan brightens.

“Oh, then sign me up!”

“I didn’t even tell you what it is,” he teases.

“Fine. My cheeks are clenched. I’m in suspense. Lay it on me.”

Phil smirks. “You can be my glamorous emo assistant.”

Dan squints at him as he crosses his arms and pouts. “At least I get to be glamorous.”

Phil rolls his eyes.

“Come on,” he says, pushing Dan’s legs off of him before standing up, “let’s go to the door so we can greet all of the people who are coming to Dan and Phil Games.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Amy for betaing!!
> 
> Like/Reblog [here](https://indistinct-echo.tumblr.com/post/646095628314771456/tops-only) :)


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